


They All Think I Don’t Know

by obsessivewriter



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-06 00:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5395385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivewriter/pseuds/obsessivewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mack’s “Turbo, you gotta give her time man. It’s as clear as day how that girl feels about you, even if she’s not saying it.”<br/>Daisy’s “Jemma is soo in love with you, she just needs time.”<br/>Bobbi’s “She loves you Fitz, you need to know that.”<br/>And Hunter’s “Well, you know she’s bonkers for you, right mate?”<br/>Even the blasted hell beast had to say it: “I can see why Jemma loves you.”<br/>[...]<br/>“You don’t think that I know that?!” he yells to no one and every one at once. “How bloody stupid do you all think I am?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	They All Think I Don’t Know

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to have fallen through the rabbit hole once more and gotten myself into writing fanfiction (even though I do not have the time! Just please don't get the bright idea about writing a multi-chapter woman!).
> 
> Nothing belongs to me, I just like to play with other people's toys.

After getting back from the planet it’s just like after the hypoxia. The way everybody looks at him and fails to hold his gaze. It’s the sympathetic looks and the pats on his back with that implied “Chin up sport” condescension.

Who would have thought that his improbable victory against Death itself and his journey across the universe would mean nothing in comparison to this? That it would still earn him that consolation-prize look from every one he encounters.

Damaged goods will always be damaged goods, won’t they?

He can live with that. Hell, he has lived with far worse so far.

It’s not that what has him reeling now. To be completely honest he doesn’t notice all of those strangers in the Playground who look at him and whisper. He is no better if he can’t think of the name of any of the people who work for him and Simmons, and that he manages to yell at on a daily basis.

No, it’s the handful of people that he considers family.

Besides Jemma.

Mack’s “Turbo, you gotta give her time man. It’s as clear as day how that girl feels about you, even if she’s not saying it.”

Daisy’s “Jemma is soo in love with you, she just needs time.”

Bobbi’s “She loves you Fitz, you need to know that.”

And Hunter’s “Well, you know she’s bonkers for you, right mate?”

Even the blasted hell beast had to say it: “I can see why Jemma loves you.”

It’s the question that she had silently begged him to ask the night they kissed. It hadn’t been a mistake on his part not to do it. He only needed to confirm what he knew to be true about her feelings for Will.

It broke his heart to know what she wanted him to ask her instead.

And yet he didn’t.

But he doesn’t explode at any of them, though he gets quite close a few times.

He loses it one night when no one is around in the lab. He knocks a short stack of files on his desk and he makes S.H.I.E.L.D.’s paper-bureaucracy rain.

“You don’t think that I know that?!” he yells to no one and every one at once. “How bloody stupid do you all think I am?”

Because he knows.

It’s not a huge veiled-secret.

He knows how blessed he was and is and will be, of possessing the wealth that is Jemma Simmons’ love.

He knows she has loved him for years, just as he has loved her.

He knows that if he hadn’t been in that pod it would have broken her heart.

Because in all his tragic-hero addiction to martyrdom in all things pertaining to Jemma (he knew he was sent to that blasted planet as a bloody snack. For the love of God! Even Ward had said so!), he never doubted for a second that he’d tried his best to make it back.

Because she had told him to.

Because he had been there, yelling his lungs out at a rock.

He wouldn’t do that to her.

“I know,” he whispered as he felt tears run down his clenched jaw.

He knew they were each other’s phantom limbs.

And yet everyone else felt they were in the know.

That they could see something that Jemma and he couldn’t, or hadn’t or maybe feared to see.

“I’ve always known just like she’s always known.”

He chuckles sadly at their naiveté while he shakes his head and his hand slides across his suddenly tidy desk.

The problem, he thinks, has never been lack of love.

Nor failing to spot it.

Aren’t they the same idiots that loved to tell Jemma and him that they shared the same mind?

No, their problem was never the absence or presence of love.

It’s the heavy weight of their history.

It’s the gravitational pull that plummets them against each other.

It’s the deadly force that makes them collide and ricochets them apart.

Love is nothing to be earned.

He’s always known that.

You don’t grow up with just a mum like his, a force of nature (who from time to time cried at night when she was sure Fitz couldn’t hear her) in a house with no framed pictures of the man who gave him his name and his hands and nothing else, and not know that love is nothing to be earned.

Because he doesn’t love her for all the sacrifices she has made for him (too many to count).

Nor for all the tiny details of affection in a litany of years and experiences.

Love is not a maths equation.

There is love between them and he knows it.

And he doesn’t doubt that Jemma Simmons will be in his life until the end of this days (whether that is next month or decades away).

It’s just that nagging feeling.

That selfish yearning.

The need to be loved the way he loves her.

He doesn’t need others to tell him how she feels.

“I know. I know and whatever I don’t she can tell me herself,” he says brushing away the last errant tear as he looks back to the door, resigned to walk back to his bunk and try once more to chase the oblivion of sleep.

“You silly man. You’ve always known.”

For a moment he wonders if it’s really her.

Just a moment.

He doesn’t need to tell her anything. He knows she can read every single thought in his head.

She doesn’t tell him what she knows he knows and yet is afraid to believe.

“You’ve always known. I’ve always known,” she says taking a step.

“But it is never enough, is it?” he asks taking one himself.

She wants to scream knowing that if they keep advancing just half of the way each time, they are doomed to never meet.

“Forgive me for taking the long way round,” she says.

“There is nothing to forgive.”

“What are we waiting for then?”

It’s not an end they’ve reached.

It’s just a start.

They are both fine with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like it? 
> 
> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated. I know you have a choice for fanfiction and reduced time to read it when you are procrastinating work/school/family, and so I thank you for even taking the time to read this angsty thing.


End file.
